In the nick of time: An end-of-weekend read

(via Flickr: jj_pappas423)

Some heavy-lift reading just as the weekend ends:

"Investigative Shortfall" (American Journalism Review): This long read on the state of investigative journalism is worth the time, but I've got to tell you that it left me lamenting the loss of talent and institutional memory in so many newsrooms. Yes, new enterprises devoted to investigations are exciting, but seems that too many experienced journalists have had to give up the profession as they were kicked to the curb.

"The Journalists Formerly Known as the Media: My Advice to the Next Generation" (Jay Rosen: Public Notebook): New York University professor Jay Rosen is one of journalism's present-day pundits, the one who taunted the media with the line "the people formerly known as the audience" to describe the shift in power away from MSM (mainstream media). This lecture to an incoming class of students at a journalism school in Paris continues the pattern: If the media no longer is mass, then a journalist is ... well, many things. You have to wade through his long, long history lesson before getting to his bulleted points of advice. I took solace with Nos. 7 and 8: that the new news landscape can accommodate professional journalists because they still can deliver information not widely available -- the stuff that recipients don't yet know they want and need.

"Laid off? What are you going to do about it?" (Adam Westbrook): Coming full circle on this "Now what?" theme is a short piece by Adam Westbrook in which he draws attention to a new study on the state of journalism in the U.K. -- where the estimate is that up to 40 percent fewer jobs in journalism exist today than in 2001. (Click on the link to the study that Westbrook provides to see some heart-wrenching comments by those deemed "redundant.") Be sure to read to the end of his short piece for his cynical kicker close.

Here's a video reward for your attentiveness.